396
NOTES AND QUERIES. [u s . x. NOV. u, 1914.
the sides." I sent for it at once, but failed
to secure it.
Settle's funeral poems rarely contain any private information. He wrote them in general terms, so that if not accepted by the relations of one person they could be used for some one else. Numbers of the bindings alone of these poems exist, for a late eminent London bookseller used to buy up copies, and, having extracted the poem, turned the covers into blotting- books. E. GORDON DUFF.
Liverpool.
LAW AGAINST CUTTING ASH TREES (US.
x. 211). Acting on the principle "Verify your quotations," I have done what I could to solve the difficulty of the writer at the above reference.
I have read through the Act referred to Pickering's edition of the Statutes and while damaging property in the case of the banks of rivers and streams is a felony, there is not in the whole statute any reference to " ash trees." I have no opportunity of referring to The Morning Herald, 29 June, 1824, and I would like to ask one of your readers who has access to the file of The Morning Herald in the British Museum to be good enough to examine it, and see what the report of the case against James Baker really alleges as the legal authority for his punishment. W. S. B. H.
USE OF MILITARY TITLES (11 S. x. 348). See ' King's Regulations and Orders for the Army, 1912,' pars. 234 :
"Officers resigning their commissions will not retain any rank in the service except by the King's special authority " ;
and also note to pars. 253-7 :
" Resignation only applies to cases in which no gratuity or retired pay is granted to an officer on leaving the service ; retirement applies to all other cases."
Retention of rank, when permitted, is usually notified in the same Gazette as the resignation.
In the Army List there is a list, published quarterly, of officers of the Regular Army, retired from the active list, who are in receipt of a retired allowance. It will be seen from this list that such officers retain their rank on retirement, the wording being " late " of the regiment, but not " late " of the rank.
No one can compel another to address him by his military title ; it is entirely a matter of the " unwritten law." But what custom has sanctioned it might be considered discourteous to refuse. J. D. C.
The retention of military titles has varied
in the regulars ; for instance, at the time I
joined the Army, in 1859, only field officers
retained them on retirement, the rank of
captain, giving as it does the title to esquire,
being then considered sufficient ; now most,
if not all, captains keep that title.
The only regulations on the subject referring to other than regulars are that their military titles are to be held only during the embodiment of the regiments they belong to. HAROLD MALET, Col.
Racketts, Hythe, Southampton.
FRANCE AND ENGLAND QUARTERLY (US. x. 281,336). This view is quite untenable:
(1) The arms of Anjou were Azure, sem&- de-lis gold, arid a label gules, not merely the fleur-de-lis coat.
(2) These were the arms of Anjou only front the time of Charles of Anjou, later King of Naples, son of Louis VIII. of France.
(3) The arms of the Plantagenet family of the Counts of Anjou, who have no con- nexion with the late Capetian Counts of Anjou, are uncertain, as this family suc- ceeded to the English throne shortly before the time of the crystallization of family arms, and afterwards used only the arms of Eng- land. Probably the family arms of the Plantagenets (if one may make a difference between family arms and arms of a kingdom at this period) were the eight leopards ram- pant found on Geoffrey of Anjoxi's shield at Le Mans.
(4) As Edward III. quartered the arms of France, and not the arms of Anjou, this quartering can be referred only to a claim to France, and can have no connexion with Anjou. D. L. GALBREATH.
Montreux.
POETS' BIRTHPLACES : THOMAS, FIRST MARQUIS OF WHARTON (11 S. x. 329, 377).- I copy the following from the Supplement of " An Extinct Peerage. Printed for J. Almon, opposite Burlington House, in Piccadilly, MDCCLXIX." It does not give the birthplace of the first Marquis of Wharton, but shows he lived after 1715, I think :
" Sir Thomas Wharton, Knt., summoned to parliament as Lord Heleigh, in the county of York, and Baron of Wharton, in the county of Westmoreland, January 30, 1544, was succeeded by Thomas, his son and heir, father of Philip hi successor, whose grandson Philip succeeded t the honours, in which Thomas, his only son, became his heir ; he was one of the first who went over to the Prince of Orange, upon whose advance- ment to the throne h c was made controller of the household, a privy-councillor, warden and chief justice in Eyre, of all his Majesty's forests, chases,
